


holding out for a hero.

by hufflepuffhero



Series: all the year around [1]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: M/M, happy fantasy feb, im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 21:48:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9923564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepuffhero/pseuds/hufflepuffhero
Summary: written for the fantasy February. The prompt was "your a famous war hero and you ended up bleeding on my doorstep."





	

These were trying times, Edward Nygma thought to himself as he watched the dust settle in the cottage that had one been his family home. A rebellion from the local mages had left the kingdom of Gotham frail and while a stable boy like Ed had no place in politics, his hands hands had been bloodied in the war. Most able bodied men his age had been expected to volunteer but few had had the bad luck he'd had of actually landing themselves in the middle of the fray. That had always been the way for Ed- it was a talent really- he always seemed to wind up right where the trouble was.

The war had not been without consequences of course, not for Ed or the mages. For his part, Ed couldn't say that waking up screaming every night was a vast improvement on his life. It was, in fact something of a bother. Still, there had been one good thing to come out of it all- Oswald cobblepot. Oswald cobblepot was a hero, now lord, who'd singlehandedly protected half the kingdom without fear for his life. Most people here thought cobblepot was just a glory hunter, some rich kid willing to risk anything to get his fame. Not Ed. Edward had seen what cobblepot did up close, those weren't the actions of a glory hunter. Oswald was a true hero, the kind you read about in books. 

There was a knock on his bedroom door and Ed started, realising he'd been lost in thought again. "Come in butch" he shouted, briefly reminding himself that he probably only felt that way about Oswald because he'd saved his life out on the field, before dismissing the thought entirely. Butch (it was always Butch) entered his room with the familiar look that often graced his features (Ed had long ago decided that it was something between confusion and rage) "do you know this guy outside?" He asked. That was an odd question since there was no one who could be outside, he and Butch were the only two people who had any reason to be here. 

"What guy outside?" Edward stood so he could look Butch in the eyes, he didn't like feeling small "there is no guy outside". Butch raised his eyebrow in a way he knew bothered Ed, he knew Ed had never in his life resisted curiosity. Reminding Butch that there was no man outside and that he couldn't possibly know him if there was, Ed made his outside. Butch was a compulsive liar who's company Ed only tolerated because, in truth, he had no one else to talk to. 

Of course Ed expected some kind of trick or practical joke like there usually was, but this time butch wasn't lying. Not only was there a man crouching on his doorstep covered in blood, he did know him. That was Oswald cobblepot. He turned back to Butch.  
"Of course I know him. Don't you?"  
\-------------------  
After the long and surprisingly difficult ordeal of getting Oswald inside, Ed found himself staring at Gotham's hero bleeding out in his bed and wondering if he hadn't just conjured all this up in his mind. Butch had been very little help in getting Oswald inside, he just stood back and watched as little scrawny Ed carried a bleeding man who probably weighed a little more than he did.   
"Aren't you going to ask him why he came here?" Butch asked once Ed had finished getting him onto the bed, to which Ed rolled his eyes.   
"Let me get this straight." He began "you saw a man bleeding on my doorstep, stepped over him and came inside to ask me if I knew him" Butch recognise the familiar look in Ed's eyes that came out when he was fighting back anger. "And now you want me to ask him why he's here instead of bandaging him up"  
"Yep" butch replied "thats pretty much it."   
"Wonderful"

Oswald watched Ed intently while he bandaged his wounds, he seemed mesmerised by the process. Probably just trying to distract himself from the pain, Ed reminded himself.   
"What happened to you?" He asked while he cleaned a particularly nasty wound on Cobblepot's upper-arm. He winced slightly when the cloth pressed against the wound but didn't call out, Ed supposed he'd known pain much worse than this.  
"Ran into an old friend" he was fighting to keep his voice steady against the pain but the sarcasm in his voice was as cutting as Ed remembered "I remembered I fought with you, and that you said you were from around here" he struggled to push himself up into a sitting position "I remembered that you were a doctor". Doctor was perhaps a little strong of a word, he knew how to stitch up a wound but that was just about it, but he wasn't about to correct an injured war hero.   
"You remembered me?"   
\------------  
In the interest of clarity, Edward Nigma would have loved to have told you how he got from stitching up Oswalds wounds to offering him a bed for the night and making him a cup of tea, but honestly he had no idea how he'd gotten to this point. For the record, if the war wasn't enough to fry his brain, having a hero turn up on his doorstep had certainly taken him there.   
"I knew you'd be a good man, I saw the way it all affected you" Oswald muttered over his teacup "wars never easy but after a while you forget what it was like to..." he seemed to struggle for the right words for a moment "to be whole." 

There was some truth to that, Edward thought, it had been harder and harder to continue with his daily tasks, to forget what he'd seen- what he'd done.   
"The mages started this fight" he countered "they knew what they faced if they failed"  
Oswald laughed but it was a sad and hollow sound, in the half light of the evening his eyes glinted as he spoke "how many of them were ready to die for their cause I wonder, how many were just blind followers. How many had children, how many had wives?" He placed his teacup back on the table beside the bed "until I have the answer to all of those questions I'll never be sure I've done the right thing."

The silence that drew out between them was agonising, Ed felt like a child who'd been reprimanded for his stupidity. Of course cobblepot was right, nothing was a simple as black and white, least of all war- he of all people should understand that.  
"Mr cobblepot I..."  
"Call me Oswald please."   
Edward sighed, it was times like this he wished his parents had stuck around a little longer, perhaps they would know what to tell a man who was questioning everything he was. What do you tell a man who he respected and admired in ways that words could not express?

"Oswald" he said eventually "no man wants me, but no man wants to lose me. What am I?"   
Oswald raised his eyebrow "a riddle?" He seemed to spend a moment tuning it over in his head. Ed watched every little movement as his mind worked through the puzzle in front of it.   
"His heart." He said finally.

"His heart?" Ed repeated, taken aback by the odd answer. "How did you get that?"  
"Well isn't that the answer"  
"No. But it's not important anymore. Let's talk about how you got your answer." 

Oswald narrowed his eyes and went back to drinking tea for a moment "is this a test?" Pushing himself to sit further up on the bed so he was looking at Nygma. Ed shook his head, he realised that this woman was a relative stranger and that he'd overstepped "just curious." He admitted and he took the empty teacup from Oswald's hands. Apparently unconvinced Oswald continued to narrow his eyes for a moment and finally said "no man wants it but no man wants to lose it. No man wants to lose his heart-that much is obvious since no man wants misery" he began, unusually defensive for someone simply answering a riddle "but I would say that no man really wants a heart, why would anyone consciously chose to posses something so easily broken?" 

For a moment Ed didn't say anything, he just watched Oswald in awe. It was one of those moments where you find you find yourself recalculating everything you've ever known, where you realised suddenly that not everyone thought in the same way as you did. Oswald seemed to dislike the silence, perhaps he mistook Ed's recalculating for judgement. "That's fascinating" Ed finally whispered, his voice invading the silence between them, cutting through it "wrong. But fascinating."  
Apparently Oswald didn't like being told he was wrong because he pulled his jaw back in a defensive movement.   
"Fine" he muttered "then what is the answer if your so clever?" He made a show of arrogance but Edward could tell he was genuinely on edge. 

Ed paused for a moment staring into his empty teacup like it held the answer to a question he hadn't yet asked.  
"His job" he said finally "no man wants to work but no man can live without work." He stumbled quickly through the words, the riddle was hardly important anymore "I wouldn't trade my heart for anything, it's what makes me who I am." He tore himself from his thoughts long enough to look Oswald dead in the eye "it's a messy existence we live. Without love what's the point?" 

Oswald was biting his lip, he seemed almost angry (though that made no sense to Ed since they were simply arguing about a riddle... weren't they?)   
"There is no point, who said there had to be a point" he snapped  
"Well that makes no sense. Your answer is wrong can't you just accept that" Ed replied, growing increasingly frustrated at how dense Oswald was being.  
"Why don't you prove it?" Oswald asked with a wicked grin that his injury earlier seemed to have chased away. He was closer now, so close that Ed could feel the others breath against his collarbone. He frantically tried to remember how they'd got to this point but this was no time to re-calibrate. 

For a brilliant thinker, Ed had to confess he was prone to making bad decisions in the heat of the moment. He lent forward and pressed his lips to Oswald's, to which the other man seemed totally in shock (by not intently opposed).   
"I don't like to be wrong" Ed admitted when he pulled away from the kiss, pressing his fingers to his lips as if he needed some reassurance that he had actually just done that. He had never kissed a man before, he'd hardly kissed anyone (apart from his old neighbour Kristen when they were kids).   
Oswald was grinning. "I doubt you ever are" he murmured before pressing another, more frantic kiss. 

When Edward Nygma opened the door to the bleeding Oswald that evening, he'd never imagined that Butch would be finding them in the morning; their limbs tangled together on Edwards little bed.


End file.
